A week and a half ago my Mother came back from a 5 week trip to Egypt where she was researching for her PhD. Last weekend we used Google Earth to look at the places she had been. The fun thing was we didn’t go off to the study to look at Google Earth on the PC, we weren’t tethered to a desk, we didn’t use a mouse or a keyboard. Instead we looked at Google Earth on my iPod Touch sitting at the dinning room table, engaging directly with the technology through the touchscreen. In other words, the conversation did not have to go to the technology, the technology came to the conversation.

I am seeing a number of new innovations in technology at the moment that I believe will change the way we engage with technology. Here are some examples:

iPad

Okay so the iPad has taken a bit of criticism for lacking in some features. But I once heard Seth Godin say on an interview that successful people and organisations ‘ship’. They don’t wait until the product is perfect, because that time will never come. Apple do this well – they ship product early, capture a market, and then enhance the subsequent generations of the product.

Despite the negative feedback, some commentators such as Mitch Joel in his Six Pixels of Separation post Game Changer – Game Over have heralded the iPad as the next evolution in computing. And I too see the potential – no longer tethered to desk, or a keyboard or a mouse the iPad will change the way we engage with technology.

Gaming Platforms

A couple of years ago Nintendo changed the gaming world with the introduction of their Wii technology. Both Microsoft and Sony are responding with technologies of their own so that game players are no longer tethered to the game station. The Microsoft Xbox Project Natal is bringing out a controller free Xbox – players interact with the game and other applications by using gestures, movement, and voice with no controller. In my opinion, once this technology makes it into gaming consoles, it will quickly move into other technologies and become ubiquitous changing forever our relationship with technology. Check out the demo video of the Project Natal Xbox. If you can’t see this video click here.

Milo

Thank you to my wife for introducing me to Milo. Built on the Microsoft Xbox Project Natal platform, Milo is a virtual boy who you can interact with as though he were real – he recognises emotions and can respond to circumstance. Imagine the future possibilities with this sort of technology. Check out the video of Milo – while the video is a little bit over the top, it does show the potential of this technology. If you can’t see this video click here.

This is just the start. Currently we engage with technology by typing, clicking, selecting, and so forth. This is all going to change. My prediction is in a few years we will only sit at a desk and keyboard when we need to do in-depth writing. For everything else we will use much more interactive means to engage with technology.

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While I’m sure there are hundreds of things business can learn from Avatar, in this post I present four ideas that came to mind as I reflected on the movie over the last couple of days.

1. A visionary leader. James Cameron has had a vision for this movie for 14 years – he first wrote the movie script in 1995. The details were incredibly specific down to documented descriptions of the plants, animals, equipment on the Pandora planet. The ability and unwavering determination to take that vision and execute it with such precision across the hundreds of people involved in the making of the movie is remarkable.

Lesson for business: Do you or your leader have a remarkable vision for your business and an unwavering determination and passion to make it happen?

2. A vision that forces incredible innovation. The vision for Avatar was not able to be executed with the technologies that existed prior to the movie. The vision forced game changing innovation – 3-D camera innovations, facial expression camera technology, and computer generated visual effects advances.

Lesson for business: Will your business vision force game changing innovation that will alter the landscape of your industry and catapult you into the industry leader position?

3. Engage people emotionally in your story. I see that some people have criticised Avatar as being strong on visual effects but weaker on storyline. I have to disagree (although I would be first to admit that I am not an experienced film critic). Avatar really engaged me. I got weaved into the story. I’m still thinking about it a few days after watching the movie.

Lesson for business: Are you just selling clients on the features of your offerings? Or are you wrapping them up emotionally in the a remarkable breathtaking story that excites them and sticks in their mind like superglue?

4. Human profits should never come ahead of life. This point is a little different from the ones above – it is more about a key message in the movie rather than the approach to the movie itself. The message I took away from the story is that humans have destroyed their own planet and are prepared to destroy life on Pandora in the name of business and industry profit. My conclusion from the movie is that the value of preserving the rich living environment on Pandora is far greater than any value of profits to human business and industry.

Lesson for business: Let’s not get to the point where we have destroyed our planet and need to search for another planet to destroy in order to fulfil our profit needs. Instead let’s find ways to generate profits while preserving our precious resources, environment, and society on Earth.

On a final note, as a Wellingtonian (New Zealand), well done to Weta Digital who did much of the visual effects for Avatar -  you make us proud yet again.

To find out more about the background of Avatar, check out the video below. Click here if you can’t see this video.

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The fresh air of the Wairarapa, New Zealand

I’ve been reflecting on something Seth Godin wrote in his New Year’s day post welcome to the frustration decade:

…And, to top it off, savings are thin and resource availability isn’t what it used to be. A lot of people ate their emergency rations during the last decade. Look for this frustration to be acted out in public, and often.

My concern is whether our businesses and industry also ate our emergency rations during the last decade – the rations of resources, environment and society.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that businesses and industry make a critical contribution – creating employment, providing necessary products and services, fueling economic growth, and providing returns to investors. But they also consume resources, impact the environment, and influence societies. As businesses and industry move into the new decade I believe that you and I (who operate within businesses and industry) need to pay as much attention to the latter set of considerations as we do to the former set. As a powerhouse in our communities our businesses and industry have the muscle to make a difference in the world – let’s make it for the good.

Many leaders have already shown us the way, making a contribution to profit AND purpose:

• Terracycle – a business that creates value from waste (see my post TerraCycle – A Business Built on Waste and Worm Poop)
• Interface – a petroleum intensive flooring manufacturer well on their way to having zero impact on the environment by 2020 (see my post Interface Looking after Tomorrow’s Child)
• TOMS Shoes – for every pair of shoes sold TOMS Shoes gives a pair of shoes to a needy child (see my post One for One – TOMS Shoes)

Our world, our society needs us to step up and to continue this same lead in our own businesses and industries for the next decade and beyond. Small changes now can make a big difference in the future.

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MityMic Microphone Package

MityMic Audio Samples

The following MityMic audio samples were recorded using the MityMic microphone, my iPod Touch 2nd Generation, and the Voxie Pro audio recording application. I edited the files using Audacity, but only to manage the sample lengths and to convert the files into .mp3 format. To maintain the quality of the recordings I used Voxie Pro set to the highest quality setting (CD Quality 44kHz) and the files were converted into .mp3 format at 128 kbits/s bit rate.

Sample 1: Lambton Quay (37 sec, 592KB)
I work on Lambton Quay, Wellington New Zealand. Lambton Quay is our busiest shopping street in NZ, so recorded myself on the street during lunch break. And yes I did feel like an idiot standing there talking at my iPod.

Sample 2: Vacuum Toy Oliver (29 secs, 464KB)
Started the vacuum cleaner, kids’ toys, Oliver crying in background – me trying to record above the noise.

If you can’t see these samples click here.

Review

I’ve noted before that the MityMic microphone records best for close sound. Distant background noise does tend to get filtered out relatively well. So I believe the MityMic microphone works well for field recording, outdoor recording, and other recording with background noise. One possible issue I can see is where the person or sound to be recorded is not close to the microphone. In this situation it could be more difficult to capture a quality recording if there was also background noise. For both samples above I was speaking with the microphone about one foot away from my mouth.

Disclosure: TouchMic.com provided the MityMic microphone for the purpose of recording the samples in this and previous posts. I have not paid for this microphone. Brendon

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First, this is just a fantastic thing to do that makes a contribution to people in need.

Second, if you are an employee at TOMS Shoes you certainly have a higher purpose to work towards. You’re working hard to make a difference, and not just to maximise profit as is the case in most commercial businesses.

Third, they have such a powerful story and point of difference that is at the core of their business. The story is unexpected and people will be naturally interested. There is no need to come up with some superficial marketing and advertising gimmick to get people’s reluctant attention. The business naturally gets people’s attention – willingly!

Fourth, as Seth Godin mentions in his post of TOMS Shoes, people who wear the shoes make a statement. Of all the shoes they own, their TOMS Shoes will be the ones that they talk about. They will pass on the TOMS Shoes story by word of mouth, and those who identify with the story will buy their own pair and make their own contribution to the TOMS Shoes movement.

TOMS Shoes was foundered by Blake Mycoskie after a holiday in Argentina, where he saw children without shoes in local villages. The TOMS Shoes shoe design is based on shoes worn by local Argentinian farmers. The brand TOMS is derived from the word ‘tomorrow’.

See the TOMS Shoes story in the YouTube video below.

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There may be other ways of doing this, but the way I know requires both your iPod Touch and your PC to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network. In my case we have a wireless ADSL modem at home that we use to connect our home PC, my work laptop, and my iPod Touch to our home broadband internet.

1. Record the audio file in Voxie (refer to my post iPod Touch MityMic Review and Audio Samples for more details).

2. In Voxie select the VoxieSync button as shown below:

3. Voxie will present a screen with an IP address. On my iPod Touch it states http://10.1.1.3.8080 (but this may differ from time to time and will most likely be different on your iPod Touch or iPhone).

4. Ensuring that both your PC or laptop are connected to the same Wi-Fi network or wireless modem, type the Voxie IP address into your PC or laptop browser address line. You should get a screen that looks like the one below. In the browser, right click the name of each file that you wish to transfer to your PC or laptop and select ‘save link as…’. You can save the file as normal into the appropriate file location on your PC or laptop. The file will be saved as ‘filename.aif’.

Once you have finished transferring files, select the Finish button in Voxie on your iPod Touch of iPhone. With the audio file(s) on your PC or laptop you can now open and edit these files in Audacity or another audio file editor of your choice.

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The Yike Bike was designed by Dr Grant Ryan, a New Zealand serial entrepreneur who was also the founder of New Zealand companies GlobalBrain and Eurekster. Leveraging funding from Technology New Zealand, the plan is to grow an international export market for the bike, which they hope will revolutionise urban transport.

I love the Yike Bike and the initial marketing also looks very impressive – “I park where I damn well yike”, “I yike not paying for petrol”. Very pleased to see this unexpected, innovative, and environmentally friendly product come out of my home country of New Zealand.

Check out the below video to see the Yike Bike in action (Dr Grant Ryan is the driver of the car in the clip).

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Wrong!

a friend Shaun McGavin and I recently set up a professional commercial website for Shaun’s photography business.  We set it up over 3 or 4 evenings, around 3 hours per evening. It cost less than US$150 to set it up, which included the domain name, hosting, and theme. Check out the end result at Big Jungle Photography.

How did we do it?

1. We spent the first evening brainstorming a name for the photography website and confirming that the internet domain name (www.bigjunglephotography.com) was available.
2. The website was built on the WordPress blogging platform. Note, that while the Big Jungle Photography website is not a blog, it still uses WordPress as its website content management system. WordPress is open source, so no charge for the software. We enlisted the help of Ninja Blog Setup to perform the technical installation of the WordPress platform. Ninja is a fantastic service – you organise your website hosting and  domain name through Ninja. You pay for the hosting, but not for Ninja’s setup. Ninja sets up WordPress in exchange for the affiliate link commission received when hosting is initiated through his website. At first the WordPress installation appears as a vanilla blog site.
3. There are many free screen design themes for WordPress, however, for the most part these are designed for blogs. We came across some good commercial themes for WordPress from StudioPress. Unfortunately Shaun had to pay for the theme he picked, but that was the last time he took out his credit card!
4. No software programming was required (although we did tweak small parts of the existing php code in the theme to suit Shaun’s requirements).
5. From there it was a matter of tuning the website as Shaun wanted it – configuring the theme, loading the photographs, writing the text, tidying bits here and there. We also submitted the website sitemap to be indexed by Google and setup Google Analytics to track the number of visits to the site.

So there you go – not expensive, not too much time, and a lot of fun setting it up. No need for an expensive website design company.

Shaun has recently moved to London, England. If you live in that area and want some great photography done, particularly of children and pets, then find out more about Shaun’s photography service at Big Jungle Photography.

Contact me if you have any further questions or want some help setting up a commercial website like Big Jungle Photography.

See the quick demo of the Big Jungle Photography website below.

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Our 15 month old boy will be toilet training in the next 12-18 months, so perhaps I can report back then on whether this unexpected product is a success. As the main toilet cleaner in the house – here’s hoping for a good outcome.

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We have a choice to make during our brief brief visit to this beautiful green and blue living planet – to hurt it or to help it.

Ray Anderson, Founder of Interface, 2009

I watched the below presentation from Ray Anderson on www.ted.com a couple of days ago and it was an unexpected inspiration. From the above quote you may think that Ray Anderson is an environmentalist. And perhaps he is, but he is also the Founder of the worlds’ largest carpet tile manufacturer Interface Inc.

In 1995 Ray came to the realisation that business and industry were the largest contributors to the decline in the environment as well as the only hope to save it. He set out on a mission of sustainability – to provide an inhabitable planet for Tomorrow’s Child. To achieve this, Interface set the goal to transform their petroleum intensive business to have zero impact on the environment by 2020. In the last 14 years the company has made impressive progress by minimising waste, using renewable materials and renewable energy, recycling their used products, and introducing efficiencies into their processes. As a result of this transformation Interface’s greenhouse gas emissions have decreased by 90% in 14 years.

At the same time Interface’s growth has increased and its profits have doubled. Ray believes that their mission for sustainability has been an incredible marketplace differentiator, securing the goodwill of customers in a way that no marketing or advertising ever could. The mission has also generated a stronger team focused on a shared higher purpose.

Ray Anderson and Interface have taken the lead. They have proven that business and industry can be sustainable and profitable – even more than that, that it can be a better business model. Now that we know this, now that we know it is possible, is it not our duty to follow and make the same transformations in the businesses we work in?

Glenn Thomas, one of Interface’s employees wrote the below poem entitled Tomorrow’s Child, inspired by Interface’s mission of sustainability:

Tomorrow’s Child (Written by Glenn Thomas)
Without a name, an unseen face
and knowing not your time nor place
Tomorrow’s Child, though yet unborn,
I met you first last Tuesday morn.

A wise friend introduced us two,
and through his sobering point of view
I saw a day that you would see,
a day for you, but not for me.

Knowing you has changed my thinking,
for I never had an inkling
That perhaps the things I do
might someday, somehow, threaten you.

Tomorrow’s Child, my daughter-son
I’m afraid I’ve just begun
To think of you and of your good,
Though always having known I should.

Begin I will to weigh the cost
of what I squander, what is lost
If ever I forget that you
will someday come to live here too.

Watch the below TED Talk video clip of Ray Anderson’s presentation. In my view it is essential viewing for anyone in business or industry who cares about the legacy they leave on our world. It is 16 minutes long.

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